


Beast Master

by SpiritPhantasm



Category: Gintama
Genre: Gen, blood warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-07 00:13:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17949878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiritPhantasm/pseuds/SpiritPhantasm
Summary: If Takasugi had to put a title to Shouyou other than ‘teacher’ and ‘samurai’, he would say ‘beast master’.





	Beast Master

If Takasugi had to put a name to Shouyou other than ‘teacher’ and ‘samurai’, he would say ‘beast master’.

It’s a fitting name, he decided, with the agreement from his two fellow students. There was really no other title for the man who fearlessly stuck his neck out for three tiny beasts and dared them to take a bite. And when they managed to not do so, thus proving their humanity, he took them in and began the painstaking task of ripping that fur apart to show the scared child underneath.

And now, with all three of his beast fully tamed, he only needs to put his hand up to stop them from being idiots. And they will, because they love him, veraciously.

Takasugi knew without doubt that each of them would happily tear a man apart for him. But they would never have to because their teacher wouldn’t allow them to, stopping them from becoming true monsters.

From the very first day he joined Shouka Sonjuku, Takasugi understood the consequence for taking this daring choice, leaving his family and all the comforts his prestigious name provided along with promised future as a samurai. And yet, the thought of regretting the decision never came to him. Not in the cold nights where they sleep in barns or under the stars, not when they have to split three fishes for four people, not even when he fell sick without the immediate comfort of doctors and servants to look after him.Bearing the burden of responsibilities for his choice is a small price compared to the joy of following a truly inspirational teacher.

And if beating up older kids who dared to badmouth his school and teacher was part of that responsibility then, well, let’s just say it was a responsibility he carried out with more joy than he did the others.

There’s a surge of satisfaction watching the kids who sneered at them writhing on the ground, hands that clutched sticks and improvised weapons clutching bruised knees and ribs. Their richer counterpart Takasugi spare no such kindness—most of them he left unconscious on the flat surface of wherever he confronted them.

It never took long for his name, and consequently his teacher’s, to become infamous around wherever they decided to stay for some time. In this particular quarry town, sensei decided to stop for a little while to help the people who are suffering from a recent mine collapse.

With Katsura hawking his every move, their teacher wrapped wounds, amputated limbs and cured infections with a single-minded efficiency almost scary to behold. And, in one particular memorable instance, helped a woman in labor deliver her child by opening her stomach with a very hot, very sharp knife.

All of his three students never knew he’s such a competent healer and was unsurprised when the little town warmed to him almost overnight. The shortage of anyone capable, or willing, to help the little people with their condition meant there was a lot of work to do but also a lot of people to indebt (Katsura’s words, that penny-pincher). They were given a small cottage to live in and there’s no shortage of grateful townsfolk who would drop in with an armful of offerings, ranging from food to blankets to finery—the last their teacher always bartered to buy more supplies for the sick. They ate well on the duration of the stay.

Whispers naturally began to start about the mysterious healer with three students—none of which can even neatly wrap a bandage. It was around this time the children of the town began coming out of curiosity and, surprised by how kind their teacher is, start coming daily for a story about faraway lands and bushido.

Trouble only began brewing then. One of the kids apparently was the son of the local lord and, raised with the bushido code, sneered at their teacher ideals. Very soon his friends from a local prestigious dojo heaped in on the insults.

The day they burn roots right beside their tiny, highly flammable cottage, before anyone was awake was the final breaking point.

Takasugi grabbed his trusty _bokken_ and marched with grim determination, challenging the whole dojo like he once did Shouka Sonjuku. Only this time there’s no one of Gintoki’s caliber and he wiped the floor with the instructor’s very prominent nose after breaking a couple of bones in every students. Needless to say, he walked out a bit bruised and bloody, but the only one standing.

He expected those people to not stand up for a little while but what he didn’t expect was the familiar figure of his teacher only a hundred steps from the dojo, clearly waiting for him. And there was simply no time to hide his limping and split lips—or, really, any chances to. The moment Shouyou’s eyes landed on him he knew he was as screwed as a man caught cheating by his knife-wielding wife.

 _‘I’m_ so _dead.’_ Was the only thing Takasugi can muster in his mind as he began breaking out in cold sweat but still drag himself up to his master.

“Good morning, Shinsuke.” Shouyou greeted pleasantly, which Takasugi answered with a stammer that he would never admit “I was just looking for you. Imagine my worry when I woke up and you were not there.”

Sheepishly, Takasugi scratched his cheek, wincing when he realized too late that it’s still sore, and ends up curling his fists by his side. Shouyou knew everything, of course. Takasugi’s pretty sure his master can probably name the exact time it took for him to sweep clean the local dojo.

“Well, as your teacher it’s my duty to straighten you out if you stray. A half-baked child like you is still one hundred years too early to defend my honor.”

Even expected, the fist to his head is as painful and harsh as the very first, slamming to his skull with enough force to shove him underground. He let out an involuntary yelp, eyes stinging with tears he stubbornly didn’t allow to fall.

It’s always an interesting perspective whenever he’s literally only a head tall from the ground. Everything else looked huge and wondrous, making Katsura wonder, once, if that’s the exact point of the punishment.

Shouyou crouched in front of his head, poking out of the ground with what he’s pretty sure was a monstrous swelling. Unlike his harsh punishment, Shouyou’s smile was gentle, if a bit sad.

“Shinsuke, I know better than anyone how much you treasure our school and family. However, you must never become a monster for this, nothing is worth as much as your soul.”

“What if I can’t stop myself? I want to—“ _protect you_ “—stop them from being idiots…”

And it was so hard to just _stop_ , especially when destroying them in revenge felt so good.

A large hand wove through his dark hair, and Takasugi looked up. 

“You don’t have to worry about that, Shinsuke. Am I not your teacher?” With an almost laughably easily heave, Shouyou dragged him out of the ole and lifted him up to his shoulder, making his student yelp. “If the time comes for you to become astray, I will stop you. Now be quiet, you shouldn’t be walking around with that ankle.”

Takasugi slumped on Shouyou’s shoulder, grumpily casting his gaze around. It’s sure nice to be taller. He clutched the material of his master’s haori.

“How am I going to become a man if you keep stopping me?” he grumbled.

“Become a better man!” Shouyou suggested cheerfully, only laughing at the half-hearted punch aimed to his bicep.

 _Become a better man._ That’s a good one, maybe he can make sensei proud if  he follow that teaching.

.

Shouyou’s warmth and his own conviction was a memory he would rather not recall. Not now, not tomorrow, never. Because if he did, he would be damning the Shouyou in his memory with the title of _liar._

Decades after his death, after Takasugi saw his smile wiped from his face one final time, after he buried what’s remain of his beloved teacher in a shallow grave meant only for a head, Takasugi can barely recall his gentle words and gentler smile. Their absence was almost like a living, writhing void in his chest, and it doesn’t matter how many lives he takes and how many blood he shed, none were ever enough to fill that abyssal hole that threaten to swallow him whole.

He can still remember, however, Shouyou’s firm hand on his head. The punishing hits and loving caresses. And there’s nowhere he longs for it more than here, in the middle of a graveyard made out from gore.

His last enemy, barely out of teenagehood for the Crustallia alien race, desperately tries to run from him while sobbing in fear, having watched him wrecked an entire battalion of their forces. There’s not a trace of remorse or guilt when Takasugi throws his sword, piercing the amanto’s heart from between his hard exoskeleton and felling him instantly. Blood spew from its mouth as he gasped his dying breath before finally becoming still.

Takasugi wondered what his teacher would do if he sees his student  like this, a single monster standing with his enemy’s blood dripping from his katana, the terrified eyes of a helpless foe looking up forever frozen. And all around him, the stench of death brought by nothing else but his sword.

Would sensei hit him for this? Or would he cry and hold him, arms wrapping around his now-adult body like once did when Takasugi was a child who doesn’t understand how precious that man was—is?

There’s no longer any way to know for sure.

Takasugi staggered to his katana and draws it out with a wet squelching noise. Taking a deep breath that tasted like blood and death on his tongue. From the door behind him, his subordinates finally breaks through and rushes up toward him, guns drawn and katana unsheathed, ready for a fight that’s long been over, carried out by a single monster who howled for everything he’s lost.

“Sensei, why haven’t you stopped me yet…” he whispered to thin air, a single moment of vulnerability before the fur of a beast knits itself around him and he reared his head up.

To kill more, to destroy more, until there’s nothing he can break to sate the fury inside of him, now that gentle hand of the beast master is no longer capable of stopping him.


End file.
